FAQ (and an answer)

Question: I am interested in opening a charter school. Where do I start?

Answer: For information on opening a charter school in your area, a good place to begin is your state board of education. We have links to each state board on our website at state links as well as other valuable links to resources for new charter school operators.

Other particularly useful resources are the Charter School Workbook, published by the Center for Education Reform Center for Education Reform and Charter Starters: Tools for Successful Charter Schools produced by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.

The University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education recently published a useful hundred-page guide to starting new schools. Funded (in part) by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the guide helps would-be school founders think through their legal options, test their market, assemble a leadership team, follow the crumbs through the political maze, develop the academic program, recruit students, work with parents and more, including such mundane but crucial items as getting liability insurance and managing the office. This will prove a valuable resource for anyone considering the creation of a charter school or similar program. You can obtain a copy by surfing to http://www.aecf.org/publications/data/newschoolshdbk.pdf or http://www.crpe.org/Publications/downloads/report_handbookweb.pdf .